The following is
a summary of average attendances for all seasons from
1965/66 to 2012/13.

Attendance stats are
available for each season on their relevant page. There
is a complete list of links here.

Below is a graph showing
the average league attendance for each season. The pink
line is a running average.

Notes

Only league games are included in
these averages. This is to ensure a fairer comparison
season to season (some seasons had bumper crowds as we
had drawn a large team in a cup). Play off games are not
included. One or two seasons have incomplete data (but no
more than one missing in any one season) - check the individual seasons for more information. The mean
average has been used. The 2012/13 season's stats have
now been added.

Home & away
statistics have only been collected from the 2006/07
season.

Data

Season

Average
Attendance

%age
Change

Home
Average

%age
Change

Away
Average

League

Comments

6566

2390

Southern League
Division One

6667

2208

-8%

Southern League
Premier

Joined on
promotion

6768

1940

-12%

Southern League
Premier

6869

1597

-18%

Southern League
Premier

6970

1369

-14%

Southern League
Premier

7071

1264

-8%

Southern League
Premier

7172

1333

5%

Southern League
Premier

7273

1122

-16%

Southern League
Premier

7374

995

-11%

Southern League
Premier

7475

602

-39%

Southern League
Premier

7576

442

-27%

Southern League
Division One (North)

Joined on
relegation

7677

887

101%

Southern League
Division One (South)

Joined as
switched league

7778

787

-11%

Southern League
Premier

Joined on
promotion

7879

524

-33%

Southern League
Premier

7980

764

46%

Alliance Premier
League

New national
league - founder members

8081

694

-9%

Alliance Premier
League

8182

761

10%

Alliance Premier
League

8283

656

-14%

Alliance Premier
League

8384

702

7%

Alliance Premier
League

8485

741

6%

Alliance Premier
League

Season

Average
Attendance

%age
Change

Home
Average

%age
Change

Away
Average

League

Comments

8586

705

-5%

Alliance Premier
League

8687

1786

153%

Conference

League renamed
(and automatic promotion introduced)

8788

2644

48%

Conference

8889

2105

-20%

Conference

8990

2869

36%

Conference

9091

2749

-4%

Conference

9192

3643

33%

Football League
Division Four

Joined on
promotion

9293

3429

-6%

Football League
Division Three

League renamed

9394

2421

-29%

Football League
Division Two

Joined on
promotion

9495

2248

-7%

Football League
Division Three

Joined on
relegation

9596

2279

1%

Football League
Division Three

9697

2141

-6%

Football League
Division Three

9798

2254

5%

Football League
Division Three

9899

2107

-7%

Football League
Division Three

9900

2746

30%

Football League
Division Three

0001

2410

-12%

Football League
Division Three

0102

1456

-40%

Conference

Joined on
relegation

0203

1341

-8%

Conference

0304

1830

36%

Conference

0405

2512

37%

Conference

Season

Average
Attendance

%age
Change

Home
Average

%age
Change

Away
Average

League

Comments

0506

2582

3%

League Two

Joined on
promotion

0607

2279

-12%

1782

497

League Two

0708

2109

-7%

1671

-6%

437

League Two

0809

2153

2%

1627

-3%

525

League Two

0910

2059

-4%

1655

2%

404

League Two

1011

2250

9%

1771

7%

478

League Two

1112

2266

1%

1753

-1%

513

League Two

1213

2440

8%

1946

11%

494

League Two

This was the last
season at Underhill. The average was
boosted by the last game, which had 6001
(combined) and 5154 (home). Ignoring
these figures would leave the league
averages as 2278 (combined, +1%) and 1800
(home, +3%).

2009/10 Further
Notes

According
to this article on the official Barnet site
League Two attendances were down by 7.7% in 2009/10, at
3853. This is worse than Barnet's average attendance
going down by 4.4% However, it is difficult to compare
league averages from season to season as a quarter of the
clubs change with relegation and promotion. It may be
that the clubs that left league two last season had much
higher attendances than the clubs that replaced them,
rather than fewer people actually attending matches. If
anyone has the time and inclination to collect all the
necessary stats I'd love to hear from you! (info@bfcsa.co.uk)

It should be noted that
the home and away average attendance figures (and last
season's average) quoted in the article on the official
site include cup games, while the overall average quoted
is league-only (as are the League Two averages). The
figures quoted in the above table are league-only - the
reasons for this are explained at the top of this page.

2008/09 Further
Notes

According to this story on the BBC "over 16.35m fans attended
the 1,656 matches played in the 2008-09 season, an
increase of 1% on the previous year." So this should
be compared to the 2% increase for Barnet's overall
attendance. (If you like your glasses half full then you
could say that we doubled the increase seen across the
league. If you like your glasses half empty then note
that the increase was fuelled by the increase in away
attenders, which compensated for the fact that home
attenders reduced by 3%.)

I had a look at the official Football League website but their competition stats
weren't working for me. However, this page (on the same site) suggests that
the 2007/08 season's total attendance for the three
leagues was 16.71 million, which is higher than the 16.35
million quoted by the BBC (but presumably from a press
release from the League).

I shall try to clarify
this over the long hot summer. Not to mention get some
stats on league attendances over the years to compare
ours to. (Did football attendances drop generally from
1965 and into the 80s, or was going semi-pro a really bad
idea??)

If you think you can
help at all (throwing some light on attendance stats)
then please get in touch on info@bfcsa.co.uk

2008/09 Further
Further Notes

The official club site
published a related article on 13 May 2009. It mentioned
that "crowds in League 2 averaged 4,175, which, in
fact, was 3.9% down on the previous season." (This
would be in contrast to the 1% seen across all three
leagues mentioned above.)

It is fairer to compare
Barnet's attendances to the League Two attendances, so
this makes our 2% increase almost 6% points higher than
League Two's in real terms. It goes on to say
"Barnet averaged 2,137". This includes our one
home cup game against Rochdale in the FA Cup; cup game
attendances are left out of the figures above for the
reasons given in the notes above. The home average quoted
in the same article of 1619 also includes the cup game.
But the 2582 average quoted for the 2005/06 season is
League-only; the average including cup games was 2478
(see the 2005-06 attendance stats page).